


5 Times Clint Barton Kissed Bucky Barnes and 1 Time Bucky Returned the Favour

by mariana_oconnor



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, Although I don't know where Wanda went, Angst, But not very dubcon, Cameos from other Marvel Characters - Freeform, Dubcon Kissing, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Kissing, M/M, Mistletoe, Skrulls - Freeform, This takes place in a magical place post Infinity War and Endgame, Winterhawk Fic Exchange, drunk!clint, where I imagine that no one is going to die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-30 20:56:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17231060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariana_oconnor/pseuds/mariana_oconnor
Summary: The first kiss is fired like a warning shot, it leaves Bucky reeling, but he still isn't prepared for what comes next.Bucky Barnes is not used to people touching him, so when one of his new team mates starts crossing the barriers that seem to have been erected around him, he's not sure how to react. Add in skrulls, an alternate universe and possibly the end of the world (again) and it turns out nothing is as complicated as he thinks it is. Sometimes you just have to trust yourself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ramenmozzarella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ramenmozzarella/gifts).



> Written for [probably-crying-or-something]() on tumblr as part of the Winterhawk gift exchange 2018. She asked for fluff, angst and kisses, and I sort of ran with that. Hopefully it meets the brief.

It’s 3 am and Bucky is trying to remember how he likes his coffee. He’s staring down at the strange grey-brown in the mug he’s clutching and contemplating the taste in his mouth. It holds no great revelations for him - either the liquid or the taste. It just tastes… like coffee. Bitter, with a bit of milk to take the edge off. Is there supposed to be some eureka moment where he finally understands?

 

He’s been trying different styles and mixtures for weeks, this one a bit more milk, that one some more sugar, a cappuccino when he feels like he’s lost it completely.

 

Mostly, these days, he’s himself, or he thinks he is. Steve seems to think so, and Bucky remembers, with the broad impressionist strokes that long-ago memories have. It’s blurry around the edges, it’s softened in places and mixed up in others, but he remembers. It’s the little things that don’t seem to catch, perhaps because it’s those things that no one can really tell him. No one was inside his head back then, no one - well, mostly no one - is inside his head now, except for Tony’s machine thing. No one can tell him what coffee tastes like, like no one can tell him if the blue he sees is really blue.

 

He thinks about that sometimes, the utter meaninglessness of it all. The gap between him and everyone else, the way he can’t trust that his brain sees and senses the same things as everyone else’s brains. They zapped him a lot, they pulled him apart and filled him up with their serums, they had his brain so messed up he would have sworn up was down and blue was red. So how’s he ever supposed to trust his brain?

 

He wonders if Steve had this when he stopped being colour blind. After all, the world looked different then. Did he have the moments of doubt, standing on the precipice where you don’t know if your brain was lying to you before, or is your brain lying to you now? Bucky doesn’t want to ask. Doubt is the sort of thing that grows. Like a cartoon character looking down when they’re running through thin air. If you don’t notice it’s there, then you can ignore it. If Steve's never looked down, Bucky's not going to make him.

 

At moments like these, on the wrong side of midnight, with coffee that he can’t remember swirling around his mouth, the doubts come crowding in. When there’s no one to see his face fall.

 

He has to learn to trust himself, people tell him. He thinks they mean with the big things, though, like trusting that he won’t hurt people, trusting that he can’t be made into a weapon again. But he’s fine with all those things; those things he can control, those things are external. It’s the little things he doesn’t trust.

 

Does coffee taste like this to everyone else? Did he ever like it at all?

 

Should he just go the hell to sleep and stop contemplating his fate in the surface of a gone-cold coffee?

 

His hearing picks up the ruckus - and he’s calling it a ruckus - when they’re still in the elevator. Clint Barton, he recognises by the Iowa vowels and the mismatched pitch that means he hasn’t got his hearing aids in. He went out with Natasha. They hadn’t mentioned why, but there had been meaning in the heavy glances they gave each other as they picked up their coats. Tonight was important for some reason.

 

Bucky straightens as he hears the elevator door open and spill them out, Barton no doubt going everywhere as Natasha herds him along. He downs the cold coffee and stands with military precision just as they walk in the door. Barton is barely contained within his skin, surging from one position to the next, like he’s made more of liquid than bones, and Natasha’s expression isn’t even slightly annoyed. She’s keeping careful watch, and there’s a slight smoothness to her gait that implies she’s been drinking too, but that’s the only sign.

 

Barton is making a beeline for the couch, hauling Natasha along in his wake, until he catches sight of Bucky, standing alone in the dark.

 

“BARNES!” he cries, the volume making Bucky wince internally. His hearing aids definitely aren’t in. Natasha shoots him a look over Clint’s shoulder that says she will intercept if he needs her to, but Bucky shakes his head.

 

“Barton,” he replies.

 

“BARNES!” Clint repeats, careening towards him with the single-minded determination of a freight train. Bucky has not yet figured out what to make of the archer. In battle he is beyond competent, his skills are evident, his determination to do what he must is right up there with Steve’s, but even then, he never seems to take anything seriously. The world is his punchline, it seems, and Bucky can’t… can’t get his head around how someone can simultaneously be both serious and the fool.

 

Outside of battle he just seems to sit on the sidelines and keep up a running commentary. Bucky can’t decide if Barton really is exactly as he seems to be, or if he’s a bigger fraud than Natasha ever could be.

 

“You’re drunk,” Bucky says, because stating the obvious will give him a moment to decide what to do next. Though it doesn't help in the end.

 

“You’re sad,” Barton says, still coming towards him. “You shouldn’t be sad.”

 

“I’m not sad,” Bucky replies. He examines the inside of his head carefully and he thinks he’s probably telling the truth. He doesn’t feel sad.

 

“You’re always sad,” Barton says, the corners of his mouth turning down into an almost comical droop. “But only when Cap’s not watching.”

 

“Clint, I think it’s time for bed,” Natasha says, coming up to rest a hand on Barton’s shoulder. “James isn’t sad. He’s tired. It’s quarter past three in the morning.”

 

“It’s okay,” Clint says, leaning in close, and Bucky can smell the alcohol on his breath, like a mist of memory pouring off him, a thousand drunken conversations perched just out of Bucky's mind, close enough that he could reach them if he wanted to, but he lets them fade away. There has been enough nostalgia this evening. “I understand,” Barton whispers again. It’s a stage whisper, more hissed than hushed. “You can’t let the people that matter see.”

 

Bucky’s throat grows tight and painful, like he’s been crying for hours, though he hasn’t cried in years. His heart rate picks up, beating frantically at the horror that is being seen, like Barton’s just x-rayed the inside of his fucking soul. Bucky lurches back.

 

“Leave James alone, Hawkeye,” Natasha says, tugging Barton back. She must be able to see the horror on Bucky’s face, he knows it. “It’s bed time.”

 

“No,” Barton says, and he lurches forwards again. Bucky is slipping into a defensive stance when sloppy, flailing arms wrap around him and he is engulfed in a hug.

 

He stands stiff, Barton moulding around him in that liquid way only drunk people can manage. One hand patting him on the back. He is warm, so warm he almost burns; he is everywhere. The world smells of him and the sour undercurrent of alcohol. His hair is practically in Bucky’s mouth, tickling against his cheek. And Barton speaks again.

 

“I won’t tell them,” Barton says, and Bucky’s knees shake, just a tiny bit, as Clint pulls back and bright blue eyes, bluer still from the contrast with the bloodshot pink around them, stare into his with an earnestness that Bucky would not have thought the man capable of. Then he leans back in and places a large, wet smack of a kiss on Bucky’s cheek.

 

It is over in a second. In the space between one breath and the next Barton’s lips have left his skin, but it’s like they left something behind there - more than saliva and cheap beer. Bucky’s throat is tight again as Natasha pulls Barton away to sleep it off.

 

He does not touch that place on his cheek, but he feels it there. The scar of casual contact, stuck there forever now, even as he washes his face, he can’t quite wash it off, and he realises that no one has touched him that casually in decades. Even Steve waits for Bucky to initiate, severs connections when he feels Bucky tense up.

 

It was not a pleasant sensation, though it was not unpleasant either. It was not contact he invited, but it was sensation and it was contact, and something about that makes his brain stutter and start.

 

He has been seen and he has been caught.


	2. Chapter 2

Christmas is big and bright and the kind of beautiful that you can’t look at directly. Bucky has seen the slow growth of the holiday in fits and starts throughout the decades. He tries not to think about how many times he was unleashed to ruin this time of year for someone. He has seen the lights, the grandeur, the huge towering Christmas trees dwarfing the presents at their feet. He has seen it all through the lenses of the mission.

It is different with the Avengers. It is more difficult to sit aside. Wakanda did not celebrate Christmas, they had their own holidays. And, before that, when he was on the run, it was easy to escape back to his own small nest and block out all the lights. This year the festival is writ large on every surface. They wear the ugly sweaters, they deck the halls, Christmas music plays in jangles and jingles. It plays inside his head as well: the echoing carols of his youth, the ones you don’t hear any more, the ones you still hear, but to all the wrong tunes.

There will be presents, there will be turkey, there will be tinsel and glass ornaments the like of which he’s never really looked at before. He remembers cut out snowflakes and carefully strung paper chains. An angel for the top of the tree made out of scraps of old Sunday dresses. His uncle dressed up like Father Christmas and a fake cotton wool beard stuck on him. He remembers the food, and oranges in their stockings, maybe a sweet or two, if the year had been good, and a hot mince pie stolen from the kitchen while his ma pretended not to see.

He remembers the bike, a handed down hand-me-down, and the sweater his sister spent a month knitting from the unravelled remains of his pa’s old one, full of dropped stitches and snarls where she’d tried to make the cabling work. He’d worn that sweater for years, till the elbows wore out.

This year, the feast will be catered, and the decorations are twinkling lights, which make the world look magical. His sister is still alive, hardy and whole, travelling to visit her granddaughter in Australia for Christmas in defiance of her age, and he sends her a sweater anonymously, the same colour as the one she knitted him. He wonders if she remembers.

When the lights and the noise and the jollity of the season, with all its arguments and panics, get too much, he retreats, turns on the blessed silence, and hums the old tunes to himself, trying not to remember splashes of blood red across golden stars.

That was not him, he tells himself. It was not now. Too many Christmases in his head.

Bucky ventures out again slowly, to talk with Steve about their plans, what’s the same and what has changed. To play the old games with him, although Charades is met with groans, and Blind Man’s Buff proves to be more acrobatic than Bucky remembers it. Barton proves more innovative than Bucky would have expected, although he probably wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been paying attention.

Bucky’s not sure why, but he has been paying attention. No. He knows why. He’s done lying to himself about that. Barton’s drunken insight had rattled him. The idea that he has been watched so carefully, but he hasn’t even noticed, left him unsettled. So since the night in the kitchen, with the coffee and the beer and the kiss - that strange, unshakeable kiss he still feels stamped upon his cheek sometimes, like Barton branded him forever - he has been watching back.

And he has been paying attention. He pays attention to how Barton hides his intelligence roundabout and upside down in words that seem too simple to be smart. He pays attention to how Barton always takes up positions with deliberate nonchalance. He pays attention on missions, when Barton jumps, always to save someone else who had not seen danger coming, and sacrifices his own position for the shot. He pays attention to how Barton’s jokes cut through the tension or, if he’s feeling belligerent, ramp it up. He pays attention to the twitch of his fingers, like he needs something in his hands. He pays attention to the way Barton’s eyes watch, always watch, everything. See everything.

If before he thought him too much the fool, now he thinks him too much the fraud. Why hide all this? Even Natasha is more obvious in her manipulations among friends, but Barton is always, always playing his part, even as he hits every target he aims for. What is the game he is playing? Why does he insist on playing pretend? It is infuriating, that the man cannot simply be what he is, he has to be the jester every second of the day.

Bucky has been paying too much attention to Barton, it seems, and not enough attention to his surroundings, because he doesn’t look up when he comes to the doorway, even though he hears the unmistakeable tread of Barton’s gait on the other side of the door, coming towards him.

It’s not that he can even argue that mistletoe is a new tradition. It had been old before he was even born.

And, of course, Wilson is there as witness, and there’s no way he’s letting that man see him back down.

“Aw, mistletoe,” Barton says, looking up as the chorus of wolf-whistles begins. He cocks his head and looks at Bucky. “You know we don’t have to, right?”

“I know,” Bucky says, but he doesn’t move. “It’s just a plant.”

“Yeah,” Clint agrees.

“You just going to stand there?” Bucky asks. He doesn’t know if he’s asking whether Barton is going to walk away or whether he’s going to kiss him. He knows there’s a tone of challenge to his voice that is practically a dare.

Barton narrows his eyes, assessingly.

“Are you?” he asks back, just as much challenge in his tone.

They are at an impasse. Bucky does not want to stand down, there’s a prickling of pride inside him that won’t let him. He will not be the first to walk away. He feels like he’s in a battle rather than standing in a doorway. Barton is still watching him, also unmoving, like they are both caught in the same, impossible situation.

Bucky cannot move himself forwards. He knows a kiss on the cheek or on the hand would suffice, and would not be any more intimate than they needed to be, certainly not more intimate than what Barton has already given him. But he feels like there is a barrier stopping him from moving. It should not be a big deal. But he cannot initiate the contact, and he cannot move away.

“Well this is just awkward,” Wilson comments from the sofa.

“Kiss or don’t kiss,” Tony calls out, “but someone else is going to need to go through that doorway at some point, and you two aren’t exactly small.”

“You gonna shoot me if I kiss you?” Barton asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I didn’t shoot you last time,” Bucky points out and Barton blinks. There is another round of wolf whistles from the sofas.

“You two have been kissing?” Tony says. “What fresh hell is this? That is a terrible idea.”

“Clint was drunk,” Natasha says and there is a round of understanding ‘ah’s, which make Bucky’s stomach feel leaden. Apparently this is something Barton does to everyone. He refuses to analyse why that makes him feel so angry. His hands balling into fists, the metal of his left arm shifting.

“I kissed you?” Clint says. “Fuck. I’m an idiot. Sorry. Shouldn’t have done that. I have personal space issues when I’m drunk. It’s a thing. I don’t even remember.”

The fingernails of Bucky’s right hand bite into his palm, but the metal on his left has nowhere left to go. His stomach churns uneasily.

“Maybe you’ll remember this time,” Bucky says. Barton blinks again, then looks around, as if he’s scared that someone is watching,or that he’s about to get called out.

“Right,” he says, looking over to Natasha. Bucky doesn’t bother to see what her reaction is. He doesn’t really care, he just needs to know if Barton’s going to run.

Barton’s shoulders square and he nods his head as he turns back.

“Well, if you’re not… you know… against it.”

“You think you invented mistletoe?” Bucky asks. “I was kissing under mistletoe before your Pa was even born.”

“Oh, fuck you, Barnes,” Barton says, and he leans in. His approach is cleaner this time, more military. His aim is good. He’s taller than Bucky, has to lean down a bit to land dry chapped lips against Bucky’s own. It is simple and chaste and efficient, just the briefest brush of lips against lips, then Barton’s gone again, his breath, his heat, his lips, retreated to a safe distance, and Bucky realises that he is still standing motionless.

“So how was your first kiss from a boy?” Barton asks, although his eyes actually look concerned - though not for his own safety.

Bucky smirks in spite of himself, and shakes his head.

“You think that was my first kiss from a guy?” he asks, then, it’s as if the barrier that held him back has dissolved, he reaches up to pat Barton’s cheek with his flesh hand, a little patronising, a little thrilling. The contact is still a novelty. “You ain’t that quick, are you doll?” he asks.

While Barton’s still spluttering and blinking, Bucky chooses retreat, forcing his legs into a sauntering gait, like he’s not got a care in the world, not like the thoughts are still ricocheting around the inside of his skull. His hands feel like they would shake if he didn’t concentrate on holding them steady. He feels like he has walked right off the precipice, or like the ground underneath him has crumbled.

It was not the kiss, not really, it was the sense of coming back inside himself. There was something there in that moment, like a spark of something, and it was gone almost as quickly as it came, but it was there. A moment of what might be, a memory of what could exist. His brain is spinning round and trying to put a name to it, trying to examine what it is he feels, but it spirals out of his grasp each time he reaches for it.

But it was real, and it was there. That’s a start.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve’s suggestion is that Bucky talk to Clint, because he thinks they’d ‘get along’. The problem, Bucky thinks, is that Bucky rather agrees with him on that point.

 

Watching Clint back in retaliation has turned into watching Clint for a whole host of other reasons. It’s been a slow rediscovery of sight, in a strange sort of way. Like maybe seeing is more than just a purely mechanical thing. He’s looking at things now, and there is more to seeing them than just the knowledge of what is there. There are associations. Certain colours feel warmer, certain shapes make him feel differently, and it doesn’t seem to be associated with any memory in particular, it’s more just that his braining is adding something more than what is there.

 

And Clint is one of those things, the things that are added to. What before was a scientific observation of how the line of his shoulders altered in different scenarios, showing how relaxed he was at different times, has become a more appreciative gaze. The broadness of those shoulders is no longer only indicative of the muscle groups built up by years of archery and acrobatics, it has a strange pleasure in it too. Bucky’s eyes graze over them, and he feels something a little like hunger in the pit of his stomach as Clint’s fingers flex over the grip of his bow, sure and certain. They are steady fingers, well suited to what he does, but there is possibility there that Bucky hadn’t noticed before.

 

The shape of his mouth as he swears under his breath, is now not only important because it allows Bucky to read the words he is saying more clearly, it has a curious idea of heat to it.

 

He isn’t foolish about this, he knows what it means, knows what his brain is rediscovering. But Bucky isn’t sure he’s ready for that, let alone with Clint, who has seen through him.

 

But Steve wants them to be friends, so Bucky is going to try. He has no objections to being friends, except the emptiness he feels when Clint steps too far away and the way his brain sometimes catches on the least useful thing to think about. The colour of his eyes has no meaning or purpose, but sometimes their gazes hold that bit too long.

 

The competition that started under the mistletoe grows. It is a safe form of friendship, to one up each other. The training room score board is full of their names, every time one of them reaches the top, the other knocks them off. Clint wins every game of darts. Bucky wins the arm wrestling hands down. Clint gets Bucky’s eyes watering from Thai food. Bucky laughs himself stupid as Clint almost sets fire to the kitchen, and every battle becomes a challenge too. Who can save the other’s ass more times.

 

Even every conversation, in a way, because saying the most outrageous things is easier than speaking seriously, even if all they ever tell is the truth. Their stories are outlandish and violent and broken in a million different ways, but if Bucky swam three miles up river in winter to take out a military base, Clint swam underwater five miles to hijack an enemy aircraft carrier.

 

Natasha rolls her eyes, Steve beams with joy, and Bucky keeps his safe distance.

 

Which is why he should have known that something was wrong. He should have known.

 

“You want a burger?” Clint asks. “I know the best place for burgers. Don’t listen to Spider-man, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

 

“Kid seems pretty smart to me,” Bucky says, because that’s his part in this conversation.

 

“He’s a kid, what does he know about burgers? Nothing! He still thinks Iron Man’s the coolest Avenger.” Clint scoffs in the way Bucky knows means he’s still sore about the poll they did last week on one of those early morning shows.

 

“Fine,” Bucky says, “I could eat a burger.”

 

“Excellent!” Clint says, punching the air. “You won’t regret it.”

 

“Gotta tell you, though,” Bucky says after a moment. “I’ve eaten some good burgers in my time. You’ve got a long way to go to beat the ‘best burger ever’.”

 

“ _Please._ All your memories are eighty years old,” Clint says, waving a hand, like he’s dismissing those decades. It makes Bucky’s smile pull up a little more. “Or are you telling me Hydra fed your burgers.”

 

“Hydra fed me rations, or intravenously,” Bucky replies, watching the fall of Clint’s face.

 

“Fuck, that sucks. You need burgers. Now.”

 

“I’ve had burgers since then,” Bucky points out.

 

“Not like this you haven’t,” Clint tells him, shaking his head. “Now grab your jacket. We’re getting burgers.”

 

So they go to get burgers, and Bucky feels calm all the way to the diner, a grim little place you’d never notice from the outside, but cheery enough on the inside, the air thick with the scent of meat juices and grease. It makes Bucky’s stomach rumble and his heart settle a little bit. He leans a bit into Clint’s space because he needs that closeness, even if he doesn’t touch him. Touch still has its broken edges, sharp and spiky.

 

The burgers are pretty good, and Bucky reluctantly admits as much, savouring the warm feeling that Clint’s huge grin gives him, and that tingle in his fingers as they want to reach out and squeeze at Clint’s hand.

 

It’s enough to feel that tingle. He doesn’t need to take the next step, not yet. It’s there if he wants to, but it comes with an edge of uncertainty that makes him hold back. Potential is enough for now, it has its own joys and thrills.

 

Well fed and in good company, they sway back out into the street and it isn’t Bucky who destroys that careful distance between them. It’s Clint whose hand reaches out and threads his fingers through Bucky’s, overheated and rough. Bucky doesn’t look down at that connection. He feels like looking down would draw attention to it.

 

He feels like he’s fifteen years old again, holding Betty Miller’s hand on the way to the Christmas Dance. He recognises this as nerves. He hasn’t felt nerves like this in years, not properly. He’s felt the familiar frisson of death at his back, and he’s felt the horrific uncertainty of doubting his own goddamn brain, but not the fluttering, tickling nerves that make no sense, because this isn’t a life and death situation. Nothing rides on this moment, except perhaps a little happiness, and yet his chest is bubbling with it.

 

“Is this okay?” Clint asks after a moment, lifting their joined hands. “I mean, I…” he scratches the back of his head. “I see you watching and we get along okay. Natasha said I wasn’t imagining things, so I thought perhaps… but you don’t seem that big on touch, really, so I wasn’t sure if-”

 

“It’s fine,” Bucky says, aware that his voice sounds like it’s grating over jagged rocks. “It’s… I can handle this just fine, doll.” He risks a look down at their linked fingers and Clint does not automatically pull back. He considers it all for a second, and thinks that the line has already been crossed. “Didn’t take you for the hand-holding sort, though. Especially not when you’ve already kissed me twice.”

 

Clint blinks at him and Bucky forces his face to stay confident. He does not want to back down. He’s never let nerves get the better of him before, he’s not going to start now.

 

“You…” Clint says. “Didn’t want to go too fast. Natasha says I always go too fast.” He pauses then, in the middle of the street, shifting a little from side to side and smiling self-deprecatingly. “I never see the point in waiting when you know you want something. Nothing lasts forever.” He shrugs. “You’ve got to take the chance.”

 

They are drawing closer together, right there in the middle of the street, drawn towards each other like magnets.

 

“Taking your time has its merits,” Bucky says slowly, “but in general you’ve gotta start something before you can take your time with it.” Each word feels like a step further into the unknown.

 

“Thought I had started something,” Clint mutters, then he uses their joined hands to pull Bucky a bit closer, so close now their chests are almost touching, but still the only point of contact is their hands, burning hot now. They look at each other, and there’s another moment of quiet between them, where Clint’s mouth spreads into a slow, generous smile, and Bucky echoes him, caught in this shard of time where there is only possibility vibrating between them.

 

Then Clint leans in and down and possibility crystallises into a kiss. It is not chaste or sloppy or drunken, but definitive. This, it says quite clearly, is the start. Like a line in the sand. The possibility is overflowing as Bucky fumbles his way back to knowing how to respond to the gentle movement of Clint’s lips against his, the feeling of that smile against his skin, the taste of the lips that Bucky has been watching. It surges over him in a wave and he releases Clint’s hand to reach out to grasp him better.

 

Before his hands connect he hears the noise of something tearing through the air, but he cannot react in time.

 

Clint lurches against him, like he’s been punched in the back, and something stabs at Bucky, right below his breast bone. Clint’s mouth gasps open, drawing in the air in Bucky’s mouth in a desperate gasp, and Bucky pulls back.

 

An arrow is pierced directly through Clint’s chest, right through his heart at a downward angle, through and through so the head has stabbed into Bucky’s own stomach.

 

“Fuck,” Bucky swears, staring in horror as Clint staggers backwards, knees buckling, staring down at the arrow in disbelief. “No, shit.” He looks up to try to find the shooter, and his eyes find… a man on a rooftop. It’s impossible to see detail at this distance, even with supersoldier sight, but he would recognise the stance anywhere, the way he holds the bow, another arrow at the ready, and it cannot be.

 

He looks back down at Clint, who has fallen to the ground and his skin is changing, going from pink to green, skin to scales.

 

“What the fuck?” he asks no one in particular, ignoring the screaming citizens around him as what was once a living breathing Clint Barton becomes a dead green alien at his feet. “What the…?”

 

“Good!” he hears, and his head immediately snaps towards the voice, his gun is already in his hand. He doesn’t remember when he grabbed it. It must have just been instinct. There’s a woman, floating above the ground, auras of fire-like light radiating from her hands, her body cracking with golden energy. “We found you. We thought the skrull might already have taken you.”

 

“Skrull?” Bucky asks.

 

“Alien shapeshifters,” she explains and as she comes to rest on the ground, and the crackling gold dies down, he recognises her from the million introductions there had been over the past few months.

 

“Captain… Danvers?” he asks, following it up with a “Ma’am,” because he’s really not sure where he fits in all this anymore, but he sure as fuck knows she outranks him. He shoves all the clamouring voices in his head into a box and shuts them away. The thing on the ground is not Clint. He cannot afford to think about anything other than the facts now.

 

“Looks like it’s time for another invasion,” she says. “Must be Tuesday. Want a lift back to HQ?”

 

“Is that an offer or an order?” Bucky asks. She smirks a little. “And how do I know you ain’t… one of them,” he jerks his head towards what used to be Clint - the skrull or whatever. Bucky’s pretty fed up with aliens, all told. Why couldn’t there be some nice ones for once?

 

She holds up her hand and the glow comes back.

 

“In general, skrulls can’t do this,” she tells him. “But you’d have to take my word for it.”

 

“She’s human,” a familiar voice calls out, and Bucky’s heart jumps over the next few beats from pure relief, emotional whiplash attacking him as he sees Clint Barton, whole, alive and fully kitted up, standing nearby, his face more solemn than Bucky’s ever seen it. “But I guess you can’t trust me either…” He shakes his head.

 

“How long… how long was that… you?” Bucky asks, because he feels like the edge of his world has shifted again. How long has he been looking an alien in the eye?

 

“About a week,” Clint says, and now he steps closer, Bucky can see the lines of wear and tear around his edges, the dark smudges on his cheek. “Tasha’s pissed. He even managed to fool her.” There is forgiveness there, for Bucky not noticing. If Natasha didn’t notice, Clint is saying, then no one would have done. The forgiveness tastes bitter in Bucky’s mouth, because he had been watching, and he had noticed nothing.

 

“Anyone else?” Bucky asks.

 

“We’re checking,” Carol says. “We have a device, it should work. But we need to get everyone back to the compound first.”

 

“Right,” Bucky says. “Shape-changing aliens, huh?” he asks, pulling himself back level. “The future is fucked up.”

 

Captain Danvers laughs, Clint winces, and Bucky resigns himself to being out here on his own again, all the possibilities shrivelling up to end as they began.


	4. Chapter 4

Life as an Avenger is a parade of one ridiculous life-or-death ordeal after another. People around him talk about burn out, but this is actually the part that Bucky finds the most understandable. He hasn’t had a real break from the war since 1943, the brief moments between attacks have always had the pall of threat hanging over them. During the war there was never any time when you were safe, not in Europe. Even shore leave in Britain still had the blitz as a constant reminder. Then Hydra - well, his down time was inside a frozen glass tube, so he never really got the benefits of it.

 

The closest he’s come to a holiday is the two years he spent hiding from Steve, recovering himself piece by piece, and even that had been punctured by his own messed up brain and what that did to him.

 

One thing you can say about the fighting is that it gives you something to concentrate on. It’s like, as long as you don’t think about it, you can go hungry for hours without realising that your stomach’s empty, or if you don’t move, you don’t realise how much you need a piss. If you just keep fighting, thinking about the mission, you don’t have to think about the other shit.

 

Like how the first time you’ve had feelings for someone in 80 years, you were tricked by a shape-changing alien into kissing them in front of that person. Completely normal stuff, like that.

 

Or the fact that it’s ten times more difficult to return to isolation after you’ve reached out of it.

 

Among the search for the skrulls and the hundred other enemies that seem to crawl out of their holes at the slightest opportunity, it is easy to keep himself busy. He spends a lot of time with Steve, who doesn’t mention anything. Though he must know, they must all know. Even if Clint’s not told anyone, everyone saw the wound in Bucky’s stomach. They know how close he’d have to be standing for that to happen.

 

But no one mentions it, and Bucky and Clint are back to awkward conversations where neither of them says anything too close to serious, until one of them does by accident and they back pedal frantically.

 

He talks to Steve, he makes Wilson’s day a little bit worse, he goes out and he shoots things. It’s practically a routine. His head doctor says routines are important. He’s pretty sure she’d get real steamed up if he told her about it though. The routines are supposed to help him get used to things, not help him hide from them.

 

It’s less about hiding, more about nursing his wounded pride, Bucky’s not afraid to admit that to himself. Everything feels raw at the moment. Like he’s all shiny and new. He’ll get used to this, like he gets used to everything.

 

But even while he’s avoiding him, he’s not going to stop watching Clint’s back. The idiot never takes enough care of himself, so someone’s damn well got to. And it’s grown to be a second instinct now: Bucky looks around in the middle of a fight and he clocks Steve and then he clocks Clint, filing away their positions and statuses in his brain.

 

So when the mad scientist of the week has opened a portal right behind Clint’s backside and he’s too busy shooting robots away from the rest of the Avengers to notice, someone has to save his neck. And Bucky’s the closest.

 

He’s not expecting to get sucked into the portal as he throws Clint out of the way, not expecting the tingling warmth that flows over his body, or the cut-off scream of his name in his ear, in Clint’s voice. “BU-”

 

And silence. The ringing, echoing kind, full of pressure inside your head. The kind that indicates a bad concussion or a really good night, and Bucky hasn’t had one of the latter in a long time. His head feels so full of blood and air that it might explode.

 

The ringing recedes. There are voices in his ear and another voice above him, hands touching lightly over his head, feeling for blood or contusions. Hands with familiar calluses that are way more gentle than Bucky has earnt in the last few years. Way more gentle than anyone he knows would be.

 

“Get back, Hawkeye,” a familiar/not-familiar voice growls. He recognises that voice, but it’s like hearing something in a funhouse mirror, mutated and warped out of shape. The cadence is right, the details are wrong. “We don’t know what’s going on.”

 

“Skrull,” Natasha’s voice says.

 

“Ain’t a skrull,” Bucky breathes out, though he doesn’t open his eyes. His head is thumping like a motherfucker and he knows daylight would pierce his brain like a red hot poker. Also, he’s liking the way Clint’s hands are still cradling his head, and the smell of him, oil, leather and sweat, with that faint trace of coffee that still hangs around him, seeped into his very being from so many years.

 

“Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it, given the current evidence,” Natasha says, her voice as sharp as diamond. “Hawkeye, get back here.”

 

The hands reluctantly pull back, setting Bucky’s head down on rough gravel, gentle as anything. And as he hears the crunch of footsteps moving away from him, slow and begrudging. He opens his eyes.

 

He regrets it a second later as the sun sears into them, blazing brilliant white, and he has to take a few seconds to adjust, until the shadowy shapes come to the fore and the brilliance recedes to more reasonable levels. The pain in his head ain’t going away any time soon, but the serum will fix that. This injury will not affect performance.

 

But it sure as hell ain’t pleasant.

 

There are people standing over him, his eyes can slowly pick out their shapes and the details of their forms. He knows them, but something’s wrong.

 

Natasha stands to his right, clearly her, everything about her correct - except her outfit. It looks wrong. It’s definitely not the body armour Stark has her wearing these days. The general style is still the same - form fitting catsuit, but the details are different. The belt around her waist is made of golden circles, not the more standard materials he’s used to seeing, her boots are… sharper somehow, and her hair… the cut’s different.

 

Next to her stands Wilson, and he’s quite the sight. Is that red and white? He’s even got a bird perched on his shoulder... that he seems to be talking to. Bucky blinks and the bird turns to look at him.

 

“Redwing only saw what we did,” Wilson says. “Portal opened, threw him out, and he landed.”

 

“Redwing?” Bucky echoes. Last time he checked, Redwing was a robot, not an actual falcon. “You really are going all out for the code name, huh?”

 

On the other side of him, stands Spider-man, except for how the kid’s ditched the cheerful blue in favour of some edgy black and red number - and he’s standing wrong. In fact, Bucky’s pretty sure from the body language that’s a completely different guy - still a kid, but a different one. What the fuck?

 

Hawkeye’s on the other side, and Bucky could pick Clint out of a line-up in the dark with a bag over his head, which is a good thing, because what Clint’s wearing is the craziest getup he’s seen the guy in. It’s blue and purple, and that’s probably the nicest thing to say about it. There’s a mask… of sorts, or maybe it’s a cowl. And the purple makes a big letter H on his chest and his head.

 

Bucky must have hit his head pretty damn hard, because that is one disturbing thing to imagine.

 

Although, it does make Clint’s arms look good - mostly because they’re the only part that’s not covered by the eye-watering colours.

 

It reminds him of Steve’s stupid costume from the war, that blue. Worst fucking idea for stealth.

 

Then he turns his attention to Steve.

 

Except... that’s not Steve.

 

He knows Steve’s stance, he knows the shape of his silhouette, and that ain’t him. For a start the guy’s got a gun trained on him, knows how to use it too. Second, he’s too short. Less than six foot even with the added height the boots add.

 

And Spider-man’s not the only one who’s changed the colour scheme. The red white and blue are still there, not gone altogether, and the godawful wings on the helmet are still there too, sticking out valiantly in defiance of all good taste, but the bright colours are being overtaken by the black. There is a sharp triangle of colour, from his shoulders down to his crotch, leaving the star on his chest and some of the stripes over his abdomen,but then he’s dressed in black all down his arms and his legs, with guns and ammo strapped to him. The shield still strapped to one arm.

 

He eyes the line of the jaw, it looks wrong. It’s not Steve’s jaw, but he recognises it.

 

“You’re not Captain America,” he says, reaching for his own gun. “Where’s Steve?”

 

There are the sounds of four people shifting into offensive positions.

 

“Hm,” says the fake Captain America, putting his gun away. “Afraid I'm the only one we've got right now, pal.” He heaves a sigh of breath, and Bucky wishes he could place that voice. It sounds so familiar, just wrong in some fundamental way. “If portals are involved we’re going to need to talk to the Fantastic Four,” 'Captain America' says. He reaches out to touch Clint’s arm as Hawkeye moves forwards. “Widow, I trust you can handle him. Falcon, have Redwing keep an eye from above. This might not be our only visitor. Where’s Thor?”

 

There is a splitting crack of lightning and, as if summoned, Thor appears, coming to rest lightly on the rooftop.

 

The same rooftop, Bucky notes, as the one he had been on before the portal.

 

Thor is… well, if things had been weird before, they’re definitely stranger now, because Thor definitely didn't have that kind of an hourglass figure last time he checked. There are a couple of ideas rattling around his head, but one comes to the forefront.

 

“I’m in an alternate universe,” he says, sounding the words out as Natasha starts stripping him of his weapons. She doesn’t find them all, which he’s grateful for. He has no wish to be wandering around this strange new world unarmed. Not that he’s ever truly unarmed, he thinks, looking down at the metal of his right hand as he flexes the fingers. Natasha eyes him suspiciously, and Bucky tries to look as innocent as possible, but he’s not sure he manages.

 

“That’s what I’m saying,” Clint says. “Alternate universe. It explains the portal, it explains the-”  He’s cut off as Captain America places one gloved hand over his mouth and leans in really close to whisper in his ear. “It explains everything,” Clint finishes a little lamely. They walk together, him and the fake Captain, swaying into each other, almost falling into step, like a well oiled machine. It’s a knowledge of each other you get after knowing each other a very long time, or getting to know each other very well.

 

They take him down - frogmarch him almost, Natasha’s watchful eye on him constantly - to ground level, and then transport him over to another tower.

 

A man with… a truly disturbing flexibility scans him with three different devices, while muttering distractedly to himself, and then confirms two things that Bucky knows damn well already. First, that he’s not a skrull, second that he’s from an alternate universe, apparently Bucky's universe even has a designation. Number 199,999. Bucky wonders what made the other 199,998 so special, but doesn’t ask it.

 

The next test is one Bucky’s more used to, a Russian code phrase, but not one he recognises. The tension in the air is palpable as they wait to see if Hydra’s asset will emerge.

 

“I got the codes out of my head,” he says, looking around at them. “And that wasn’t one of them, anyway.”

 

There is a flurry of movement as Natasha and the fake Captain have a hushed conversation. Clint comes over to sit next to him, still in the garish blue and purple, swinging his legs off the bed that Bucky’s been sat on, like a recalcitrant child at the doctor’s.

 

“So what’s it like in your world?” Clint asks.

 

“Well we don’t got a guy who can turn himself into spaghetti,” Bucky says, nodding towards Dr Richards, as he’d been called, who is currently typing at a computer while his head’s on completely the other side of the room. “And Thor’s a fella, not a lady. Also we have better outfits, and Steve Rogers is Captain America. I don’t know who that guy is, but he’s a fake.” He nods at the other Captain, glaring at the back of his head.

 

“He’s not that bad,” Clint says, a goofy sort of smile spreading over his face. “And Steve Rogers used to be Cap over here, too. He’s just taking a break at the moment.”

 

“A break?” Bucky asks, unimpressed. “You ever met the man?”

 

“Yeah,” Clint says. “But he left the job in good hands.”

 

“Really?” Bucky asks. Clint chuckles like he’s heard a good joke. “What makes you say that?”

 

Clint pulls off his gloves and holds up his left one, Bucky’s eyes are caught by the gleam of gold around his ring finger.

 

“Mainly cause I’m married to them… him...  I’m married to Captain America.” He looks like he can’t quite believe the words that just came out of his mouth. “Still weird.”

 

“You’re married?” Bucky asks. He reminds himself that this is a different Clint, on a different world. There is no reason they would be anything alike. But they hold themselves the same, they have the same smile, the same way of speaking to him. “Right. Guess that’s another thing that’s different.”

 

Clint frowns at him, and rubs a hand over the back of his neck, though the skin there is covered by the blue scales of his cowl.

 

“Your Clint isn’t married?” he asks. “I mean, I’m assuming that there is a me in your universe and I’m not… Cleo or something.”

 

“There’s a Clint Barton in my universe,” Bucky says. “He’s an archer. He’s called Hawkeye, too. But he doesn’t wear a silly mask.”

 

“Awesome mask,” Clint corrects. Bucky doesn’t even bother to answer that. Clint reaches up to pull it off, revealing some of the worst helmet hair Bucky’s ever seen, and half a dozen cuts and bruises that should definitely be looked at.

 

“You need to see a doctor,” he says. His words are echoed, intonation and cadence exactly the same, by another voice and he turns to stare in astonishment at the fake Captain, who looks back at him with familiar eyes. Eyes Bucky should have recognised, because they look back at him in the mirror every day.

 

“Aw, surround sound mother-henning,” Clint moans. “And I thought two Buckys would be awesome.”

 

Bucky turns back to him, looking at the downturn of his mouth and then down at the ring on his finger. This Clint is married… to Captain America… who is him.

 

Bucky doesn’t know how to process this, doesn’t even comprehend how to begin coming to terms with what this even means. He  knows this isn’t his universe. He knows that isn’t him across the room in the Captain America outfit. He knows this isn’t _his_ Clint sitting next to him. But the fact apparently remains that in one universe, in the thousands of universes, he is Captain America, and he is married to Clint Barton. Not the right Captain America and not the right Clint Barton, but it is possible. He is staring that possibility in the face.

 

Before he can ask any questions, or even understand what questions he wants to ask, Dr Richards’ voice cuts in, his head, on it’s overlong strung out neck, his hovering near them.

 

“I can probably open a portal to your earth within twenty four hours,” he says. “I assume you want to go back.”  


“Yes… please,” Bucky says, swallowing around the ache in his throat. Back to the world where everything’s fucked up, but it’s real.

 

“Great!” Clint says. “Call us when you’ve got something, Doc. We’ll take him back to the mansion tonight.”

 

“Mansion?” Bucky asks, he’s gotta admit he’s probably in shock now. Everything feels very far away and distant from him, like his body is completely separate from his mind.

 

“You don’t have Avengers Mansion? Clint asks. “That’s gotta suck!”

 

“We have a facility upstate,” Bucky says.

 

In this universe, they do, indeed, have a mansion. Tony apparently grew up here, and any worries Bucky might have had about Steve not existing in this universe are quickly overcome on entering the place, as apparently Iron Man in this world likes to decorate using pictures of Steve’s face. It’s uncanny.

 

“Yeah, the decor takes a bit to get used to,” Clint agrees. “We’ll set you up with a room for the night, there’s tons of space. Jarvis!” he calls out. Bucky expects the walls to reply, like Friday back in the compound. He’s heard about JARVIS, Tony’s previous AI, the AI that became Vision, before. But instead a smartly dressed man with a bland but efficient look on his face appears through a doorway. “Hey Jarvis,” Clint says cheerfully. “We’ve got a guest. Bucky 2.0’s waiting for a ride back to his own universe, could you set him up?” Jarvis looks Bucky over and nods.

 

“Certainly, Mr Barton,” he says with a nod. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sergeant Barnes - or is it Mister in your universe.”

 

“Bucky’s fine,” Bucky says. Usually they keep "sergeant" for the press circuit, when they want to remind people of his tragic backstory, or so Tony says.

 

“Of course, Sergeant,” Jarvis says. “I’ll have a room set up for you, and make sure there is enough food for dinner,” then he disappears again.

 

Clint leads him through to the TV room as the other Avengers disappear, only the other Bucky follows them, his eyes glued to Bucky himself. He removes his cowl and Bucky is struck with that feeling of unfamiliar familiarity again. The face is right, but not how he sees it in the mirror, and the hair has been cut short, almost like his own was before the war. They stare at each other for a long moment, eerie as they scan each other’s faces for the differences.

 

“You still need to write your mission report,” Other Bucky tells Clint, who groans dramatically.

 

“Can’t you write it for me?” he asks, collapsing on the sofa and craning his neck back to look over the back of it at Other Bucky.

 

“No,” Bucky says. “I hate it as much as you do.”

 

“What’s the point of being married to the team leader if you don’t let me off the paperwork?” Clint asks. The reminder of their marriage jerks Bucky like the strings of a marionette, but neither of them is paying attention to him - not fully at least. Bucky has no delusions that the other version of him is ever not aware of him. But this is a conversation they have had frequently, it’s clear in the way they play their parts, the way their words sound that little bit rehearsed, but still playful.

 

“I can think of a lot of other benefits,” Other Bucky says, and he sounds… he sounds like Bucky remembers sounding. He sounds like he had used to sound talking to the girls and the guys at the dances sometimes, confident and sure of himself, and just the proper side of filthy. Bucky’s own mouth goes dry at the insinuation.

 

“Well you’ll have to make it up to me,” Clint points out. “I really hate paperwork.”

 

Other Bucky huffs, but leans down as Clint stretches up, and they kiss like that. It’s brief, but there is something about it that Bucky can’t take his eyes off. There is a lazy familiarity to it, that speaks of knowing each other’s mouths intimately. There is a hint of passion, but it is layered under affection, and the smile on the other him’s face as he pulls away is almost unguarded, tender in a way Bucky wasn’t sure he even knew how to do anymore.

 

His eyes catch the gaze of his double, and the tenderness disappears, replaced with the silent promise that if anything happens to Clint, this Bucky will kill him, and he is not going to be kind about it.

 

Bucky tries to convey back how little there is to worry about from him, and he hopes it gets through, whatever he reads in Other Bucky’s gaze, the other him nods and leaves the room. If he’d really been scared that Bucky were dangerous to Clint, he would never have left them alone together.

 

“How did that happen?” Bucky asks, unable to resist his curiosity. Clint looks suddenly abashed and  scrubs a hand over the mess of his hair.

 

“Don’t look at me, I’ve got no clue,” he says with a shrug. “Last thing I knew we hated each other, then we were kissing. After that the hating each other part was less fun than the kissing, so we just sort of… did the kissing bit instead.” He spreads his hands as if to ask what more there is. It’s not enough. If Bucky was hoping for some sort of step-by-step recipe to win the heart of Clint Barton, that wasn’t it. “So you and your Clint aren’t…?” Clint asks.

 

“He’s not my Clint,” Bucky answers, keeping his tone as cold and shut off as he can.

 

“But you want him,” Clint says. “Of course you do. Who wouldn’t want me?” he spreads his arms with a bit of false bravado. It's easy enough to read through to the real question: _'don't you want me?'_

 

“It’s not going to happen,” Bucky says.

 

“Well that’s bullshit,” Clint says, screwing up his face. “Trust me, if I know myself, and I do - no matter what other people might tell you - there’s no way I don’t want you.”

 

“Well, he’s had some pretty concrete evidence that I’m interested in him,” Bucky says, thinking back to his Clint watching Bucky kiss a skrull wearing his face. “And since then he hasn’t come near me.”

 

He doesn’t mention that it’s as much him avoiding Clint as it is Clint avoiding him. The avoidance has been mutual, after all.

 

“Pretty concrete or absolutely concrete?” Clint asks. Bucky glares at him, but Clint doesn’t back down. Of course he doesn’t. Clint never backs down.

 

“There was a skrull,” Bucky says. “And a kiss.”

 

“Skrulls don’t count,” Clint says, waving a hand. “Everyone knows skrulls don’t count. If they counted, things would really be messed up. Just, maybe you should tell him.”

 

“I…”

 

“Or don’t tell him and miss out on all his awesomeness,” Clint says with a shrug. “Up to you.”

 

The subject fades off and they end up watching the television, which is far more similar to what Bucky is used to than he’d expected. Their universes aren’t that different, it seems.

 

Dinner passes with polite conversations. The Avengers are fascinated by what his world is like, and Bucky’s just as fascinated by their world. The fact that here Sam can apparently communicate with birds is a little mind blowing, and it seems that the team is bigger than it seems, with people strolling in and out about their business. Some of them only there to gawk at their interdimensional visitor, though none of them seem truly concerned by it. The impression Bucky gets is that this is practically a weekly occurrence for them.

 

Sleeping in a strange place is always weird, though he manages to get some rest, it is disturbed and uneven, the concussion is gone, but there’s still a bit of a headache hanging around him, and the revelations of the day run around in his brain, snapping at his thoughts.

 

Back in Dr Richards’ laboratory the next day, he’s grateful to be leaving this place, where things are too similar and too different to be comfortable.

 

As Dr Richards fires up the machine, Bucky turns to say goodbye to the Avengers. Captain America - as Bucky supposes this version of him is - nods and shakes his hand.

 

“Keep an eye on Clint and Steve,” the other him says. “They like to try to get themselves killed.” Bucky smiles as he nods, because some things never change.

 

“Keep an eye on yours, too,” he replies.

 

Natasha just nods from where she stands by the wall, overseeing proceedings. She seems just to be here to make sure he actually leaves.

 

Clint is the third and final member of his farewell committee, wearing civilian clothes today, a ratty old pair of jeans and a purple hoodie covered in dog hair. He shifts awkwardly on the balls of his feet for a minute, then steps forwards, arms wide for a hug.

 

Bucky hugs back, savouring the feel of it, the smell of it all. It has been a long time, it seems, since they’ve been this close, and he feels like an addict getting a hit. He makes to move back but a hand comes up to cup his cheek, and then lips are pressing against his.

 

Clint kisses him like he knows Bucky’s mouth inside out - which this Clint probably does. He knows every technique to make Bucky gasp and drag the little broken noises out of his throat. It feels like he’s being overwhelmed and Bucky knows his hands are gripping Clint back that little bit too hard. He knows it’s not his Clint, but for a few seconds, he lets himself pretend.

 

The kiss is too brief, it sweeps over him, the sensation of it fizzing through his veins from his lips right down to his toes, as Clint systematically destroys him, making his knees tremble and his heart rate spike. All he can do is let himself be kissed.

 

Then Clint pulls back, stepping away, and it takes Bucky a second to find his balance and remember which direction is up. Clint is smiling smugly, Natasha is rolling her eyes from the corner, and the other Bucky looks resigned, but not upset.

 

“Some incentive,” Clint says. “Talk to him. And if he says no, at least you’ve got the memory, right?”

 

Bucky doesn’t know if the memory of that kiss, so familiar and completely knowing, will be a blessing or a curse.

 

“Right then,” Dr Richards says, blinking and looking between the three of them uncertainly. “If you’d like to step this way, the portal has been calibrated to the unique signature of your universe, the same signature that you yourself resonate, so it should be the correct one. The actual journey should be instantaneous. You step through from this side and you step into the other world. It also shouldn’t be as unstable as your first experience. People who don’t truly understand the technology can of course-”

 

“Thanks,” Bucky says, cutting in. “Where do I need to go?”

 

“Oh - right,” Dr Richards nods and flicks a switch. There is a moment of nothing, then a huge, quivering circle of light spreads into existence between two metal stands nearby. It looks almost identical to the one Bucky was sucked into before, only it seems calmer - like the difference between a lake in a storm and a lake on a clear day.

 

“Have fun!” Clint calls. Bucky doesn’t answer, just steps forwards.

 

His body tingles with warmth, his stomach lurches and then gravity resets itself and he is on the other side, standing on a street in New York, hearing the honking of the daytime traffic.


	5. Chapter 5

 

Things look dire. The skrull forces are overwhelming, they have infiltrated almost every nation. The world is at war with an enemy who hides amongst them, almost impossible to uncover.

The anti-skrull devices are being distributed, but there are blocks in the way. The skrulls themselves are stopping them, using their spies, and when the invasion finally comes, the skrull fleet appearing, there is no more time.

There is no more time.

Bucky has seen so many things, that standing on an enemy spaceship, hurtling towards earth, looking out at his own planet, spread out like a shiny blue and green marble below him, shouldn’t even register, but the sight of it all, vast and beautiful beneath him, takes his breath away. This is what he is fighting for. This is what Steve has always been fighting for: this planet and all those ant-like people crawling around on that great ball of dirt. From up here it all seems simultaneously so very small and so very vast. He can see the whole world from up here, and the whole world is in their hands.

“We’ve lost engines,” Tony’s saying, matter of fact in his ear. “That’s… not the best news ever.”

“We need to get them working,” Steve says, the strain that Bucky knows he’s feeling not evident in his face.

“Right, because I know exactly how to fix the engine of an alien spaceship that runs off a power source I can’t even begin to comprehend in the limited amount of time before we hit the atmosphere and slam down into the earth,” Tony says, his voice clipped.

“Is there… a manual or something?” Steve asks.

“A manual?” Tony asks.

“Projected casualties?” Natasha asks, cutting straight to the point. Bucky goes tense. It is Vision who replies. His answer is bleak.

“We could really use Carol right now,” Rhodes says. “Tones, do you reckon you and I could slow it down, or change the course enough so it doesn’t break atmosphere?”

“We can try,” Tony says, “but my suit… it’s not exactly space worthy right now. How’s yours holding up?”

“I’ve got enough,” Rhodes says.

“Carol’s got her hands full with the rest of the fleet, the Hulk, too,” Steve says. “ Our communications aren't getting through to them. We can’t let any of those ships get through. It’s up to us to make this work.”

Bucky stops listening to them. His part of this fight is done. There’s nothing he can do to stop this ship, not now. He hears a noise behind him and turns, gun raised, ready to shoot any skrull who survived their initial attack.

It’s Clint. A quick glance at Bucky’s wrist indicates that he really is a human, not a skrull replica, and he turns back to the earth.

“Front row seat to the end of the world,” Clint says with a laugh. The humour would have annoyed him, once, but now Bucky just huffs. “Who’d have thought a kid from Iowa would make it here to see this?”

“Or a hundred year old man from Brooklyn,” Bucky adds.

“I feel like I should be doing something,” Clint says. “But there’s nothing to shoot.” He holds up his bow.

“I know how you feel,” Bucky agrees. He wants to punch something, to shoot something, to do something. But what can he do? He’s useless right now. “At least the company’s pretty good. That’s something.”

Clint looks honestly surprised at the comment, and turns away, like he’s not sure what to do with it.

“Feel like we should have a beer or something,” he says. “But I’ve got nothing but this.” He holds up what could be a bottle of liquid. “It smells alcoholic, but honestly, it could be what they use to clean their toilets. Do skrulls have toilets?”

“All living things got to excrete,” Bucky says. “Think I learnt that somewhere.” Clint screws up his nose and tosses the bottle-thing over his shoulder.

“Best not to risk it.”

Bucky becomes aware of Clint’s eyes staring at the side of his face, an intense sort of stare that feels like it’s peeling back the layers of his skin.

“I got something on my face?” he asks, carefully not looking across.

“It makes you think, doesn’t it?” Clint says, gesturing down at the world below them.

“About what?” Bucky asks.

“About how stupid we are,” Clint says, then he’s moving, standing right in front of Bucky, blocking out the earth with his presence. “I might never get another chance,” he says.

It’s a last, desperate, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em kind of moment, and it’s a last, desperate kiss.

Bucky’s almost used to Clint’s lips taking him by surprise by now, but the feeling in this kiss is different. It’s hard and all consuming, there’s too much teeth and neither of them are yielding. Clint’s fingers are tangled in the collar of Bucky’s uniform, pulling too tight across the back of his neck, and Bucky’s hands are grasping at Clint’s shoulders. The torrent of feelings that pour through it are moving so fast he can barely grasp at them. There might be the salt of tears in there, and the metallic tang of blood. He can taste dirt and metal and a million things, and he shoves back just as hard, just as desperately.

Clint’s right, this might be their last chance. He’s damn well going to take it.

Clint kisses him like he wants to consume him, like if he just kisses him hard enough, he’ll be able to breathe only Bucky and survive this goddamn nightmare. Bucky takes it all and hands it right back, memorising each new sensation.

It is better than the kiss he had with the alternate Clint, where Clint had known all Bucky’s weaknesses, because this is them learning each other, a one day only, intensive course in how to kiss Clint Barton. He learns the shape of the inside of his mouth, the way his lips move, the noise he makes when he pulls away to gasp for breath only to lean in for more seconds later. He learns the burn of stubble against his cheek, the scrape of fingernails at his throat.

It is brutal and savage and urgent.

“Hawkeye? Winter Soldier? Come in,” Steve’s voice says, severing their connection as Clint pulls back - as far as Bucky’s hands on his shoulders will let him.

“We’re here, Steve,” Bucky says, looking back into Clint’s wide, slight panicked, blue eyes.

“We think there’s a chance. Can you make it to the engine room?”

“On our way.” Bucky says, standing up and breaking into a run. Clint’s footsteps thundering after him.

Clint avoids eye contact as they reach the engine room, as they follow Tony’s hurricane of instructions, as they pull that last, desperate, million-to-one chance out of the bag.

They hold their breath collectively as the ship comes to life around them, as they work to eject the bulk of the vessel, leaving only the central part behind, and the ship breaks up around them.

Bucky tries to catch Clint’s eye, but Clint is studiously ignoring him, trying to pretend that nothing is unusual. Perhaps nothing is unusual about this for him. Perhaps he always kisses people when he thinks he’s about to die.

But Bucky’s not going to let him off the hook that easily.

Easier said than done when Clint disappears as soon as they reach the other ships, off to shoot some more skrulls in the head, no doubt, and Bucky gets drawn into his own battles. The catastrophe might have been averted, but the fight isn’t over yet.


	6. +1

It has been a month since the Skrull Invasion was stopped. One month since they landed back down on earth and Bucky went to find Clint only to discover him unconscious and bleeding out, Natasha calling for a doctor.

Clint left the hospital before he was allowed visitors, and he has Friday helping him evade Bucky’s attempts to see him. There is no question that this time it is entirely Clint who is avoiding Bucky, not the other way round.

“He won’t fucking talk to me,” Bucky says to Steve as they pace round the ring, looking for holes in each other’s defence.

“He’s just freaking out because he kissed you,” Steve tells him, then takes advantages of Bucky’s momentary shock to flip and kick him in the head. Bucky reacts just quickly enough to grab his second leg as it flies past. “You were still on comms, Buck. We all heard you.”

“Everyone heard?” Bucky asks, because it seems like he would have heard more shit about this if that were true.

“I think Tony was a bit busy, but the rest of us definitely knew what was going on,” Steve tells him, rolling and kicking to throw Bucky off him.

“And Wilson doesn’t have an opinion?” Bucky asks, evading the sweep of Steve’s leg. “Doesn’t sound very likely.”

“Oh, he has an opinion,” Steve tells him, with a cheery grin that means Sam’s been sharing those opinions with Steve. “He’s just keeping it to himself until you and Clint sort this out.”

“Not much hope of that when the idiot’s ignoring me,” Bucky says, landing a punch square in Steve’s chest.

“Well, it’s not like you’ve ever kissed him before.”

“That’s nonsense,” Bucky says, but when he thinks about it, that’s true. There was one drunken kiss on the cheek and that peck on the lips under the mistletoe, but those are the only other times Clint - real Clint - has kissed him. Sure he saw Bucky kissing the skrull, but he’s got no clue about the kiss with the alternate version of him. So maybe they went from nought to sixty there.

“Do you think he regrets it?” Bucky asks, frowning.

“I think he’s scared,” Steve says. “People do things when they think they might be dying that they wouldn’t do in other circumstances. I think he’s scared that you regret it.”

“I don’t regret it,” Bucky says.

“I know that, you know that… but as far as Clint knows the only time you’ve kissed him back, you were about to die. And the two of you hadn’t been the same since the thing with the skrull.” Steve shrugs. “Just talk to him.”

“I ain’t that good at talking,” Bucky tells him. “Better at action than dialogue. And I can’t talk to him if I can’t see him.”

“Then find him,” Steve says. “Or are you going to tell me that he’s better at hiding than you are at finding people.”

Bucky gives him a flat look, but Steve keeps that infuriating pleasant look on his face, the one that everyone who knows Steve Rogers, rather than Captain America, knows means he’s feeling smug.

“You could keep trying to hit me,” Steve says, deflecting the blow that Bucky aims into his smug little smirk. “Or you could go find Clint and stop being an idiot.”

Bucky feints to the left then lands a blow hard against Steve’s undefended side, making him cough with the breath forced from his lungs.

“Or I could do both,” he says, before stripping the loves from his hands and stepping out of the ring. “You should put some ice on that.”

“It’ll be healed before I even get to the freezer,” Steve says. “Barely even felt it.” Bucky flips him off over his shoulder, heading for the shower. He’s going to do this properly.

Cleaned up and dressed in an outfit that Natasha assures him makes Clint especially distracted, he sets up the trap.

The trick to finding people is less to chase after them, and more to wait where you know they will find you. The Winter Soldier was a blunt weapon, for all Hydra cleaned up after him very well.

So he goes through what he knows of Clint’s habits and his routines, as rough and erratic as they may be, and finds the common thread.

Bucky finds himself back in the kitchen, contemplating coffee.

He doesn’t have to wait for very long. He has timed it so that Clint has barely had time to remember that he’s avoiding Bucky, his brain too blurred with sleep to remember to ask Friday where Bucky is. It’s probably a cheap tactic, but Bucky’s not pretending to be polite about this.

Clint shuffles in - he’s still got a cast around one arm and he’s trying to scratch underneath it with an arrow that he’s shoved right down inside it. His eyes are half closed in relief and sleep, his hair is sticking up one side and the crisscross pillow marks are still etched into his cheek. He is topless, wearing sweatpants that hang haphazardly from his hips, the drawstring and elastic old and worn.

He looks up as Bucky holds out the fresh cup of coffee, his brain still clicking into gear as he takes in the scene, although his hands take the mug automatically.

As he realises what has happened, his eyes go wide and round, the white visible all the way around, and his mouth follows their example. He steps backwards, the arrow still stuck down his cast, the mug clutched tightly in his hand.

“Don’t,” Bucky says. “Please.”

“Uh…” is Clint’s only reply. He opens his mouth to say something more, but Bucky is filled with the need to not hear any more excuses. No more nonsense. He steps forwards.

“Let me say something,” he starts. But the only words he can think of are 'you're an idiot', and that doesn't seem to set the right mood.

“Right, this is about the… thing… on the spaceship,” Clint starts.

“No. I’m going to say this,” Bucky says. “I just... I guess it's my turn.”

He lifts the mug from Clint’s grip and sets it to one side. This is not going to be ruined by one of them spilling hot coffee all over themselves.

Clint makes a small sound of protest, but swallows it nervously as he sees the look in Bucky’s eyes.

“If you don’t want me to do this, tell me to stop,” Bucky says.

He is standing right at the edge, now. He draws in a deep breath, and steps off.

His approach is slow, unlike the way their kisses have always started before, with Clint surging forwards. Bucky gives him time to back away as he raises his hands to cup Clint's cheek and the back of his head, curling into the hair there.

There is something rushing past his ears. It might be the sound of his blood pumping through his veins. He feels that thrill again, all over, a moment of nervous anticipation.

“I ain’t hearing a no, doll,” he says. His voice is rough to his own ears.

“Am I still asleep?” Clint asks, his voice dazed.

“Nope, we’re both awake,” Bucky tells him. “And I’d really like to kiss you now, if you’d let me.”

“Yes,” Clint says, the word hurtling out of his mouth. “That… I’d like…” Bucky smiles, the nervous thrum of Clint’s pulse under his thumb calming his own slightly. He’s not the only one standing on the edge of this cliff, it seems.

“Good. Then we’re on the same page,” he says, their faces so close now that the words are whispered across Clint’s lips, and he can feel Clint’s breath across his own mouth. Clint’s eyes are out of focus now, just a blur of grey-blue that flickers shut as Bucky grazes their lips gently together, testing at first, then again, a little longer, a little stronger.

He keeps it slow and gentle. There is no cataclysm this time, no urgency behind it. They have no audience, and neither of them is an alien or from another universe. This moment is all for them and he means to savour it.

Clint is still sleep-soft against him, his lips pliant, but responsive, echoing Bucky’s actions. This is not a desperate goodbye, but a leisurely hello. It is a declaration of intent, and Bucky intends to come back to this again and again until they have perfected it.

Their noses bump against each other and he pulls back to rest their foreheads together, once again, their breath shared between them, passing from one mouth to the other. Clint’s good hand is hot against Bucky’s waist and his eyes are still closed.

“You want to do that again a couple times?” Bucky asks. “Practice makes perfect, after all.”

“I think you might need a bit more practice than that,” Clint says, his eyes finally opening.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to be rude. You might need a few more lessons, too.”

“Oh please, technique’s come a long way since your day,” Clint tells him, grinning brightly. “You might need to learn few new tricks, if you’re up for it.”

“And here was I thinking that you guys these days seem to have forgotten the basics,” Bucky retorts, then leans in quick to steal the next words from Clint’s mouth before he can say them.

**Author's Note:**

> The alternate universe is not the canon comics universe, it is one of the million random universes that exists. I just wanted to have some Bucky!Cap in there, and I like to think there's a universe where they're married. What's the point in alternate universes if you can't do that?
> 
> Also, skrulls... because why not? Technically that's not Clint kissing Bucky, but for the sake of this fic it counts. I know very little about them, though so... hand wavy 'it's a different universe, so they're not quite the same and Captain Marvel hasn't come out yet so we don't know how they work in the MCU anyway' magic?


End file.
